quotations about leadership
A cowardly leader is the most dangerous of men.
STEPHEN KING
Under the Dome
He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
He who thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
Leading from the Lockers
At the heart of leadership is the leader's relationship with followers. People will entrust their hopes and dreams to another person only if they think the other is a reliable vessel.
DAVID GERGAN
Eyewitness to Power
Leadership in today's world requires far more than a large stock of gunboats and a hard fist at the conference table.
HUBERT H. HUMPHREY
speech in Gainesville, Florida, Oct. 20, 1966
I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.
DESMOND TUTU
The Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 20, 1984
Leadership is not just one quality, but rather a blend of many qualities; and while no one individual possesses all the needed talents to go into leadership, each man can develop a combination to make him a leader.
VINCE LOMBARDI
attributed, Run to Win: Vince Lombardi on Coaching and Leadership
What I want is men who will support me when I am in the wrong.
LORD MELBOURNE
attributed, Lord M.
Bad leadership is an oxymoron.
JOSEPH CLARENCE ROST
Leadership for the Twenty-first Century
There is nothing worse than a leader who is too far ahead of the people he or she is trying to lead. Have you ever tried to follow someone in a car? Some people are good at leading you -- some aren't. But, the best leadership is always taking you somewhere you haven't been before -- stretching you towards something new.
RON EDMONDSON
"7 Times Leadership is at Its Best -- A Delicate Tension", Crossmap, April 18, 2016
Leadership is most effective when those acting in that capacity realize that their effect on others must be indirect. This indirectness means influencing others by changing yourself.
GREG ROBINSON & MARK ROSE
A Leadership Paradox
When one sheep leads the way all the rest follow.
CHINESE PROVERB
Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
address at the Episcopal National Cathedral, Washington D.C., Mar. 31, 1968
If becoming a high performing organization is the destination, leadership is the engine.
KEN BLANCHARD
Leading at a Higher Level
Real leadership is not about calling yourself "leader"; rather, it's about taking up the cause to change some piece of the world for the better. Real leadership, in other words, is an extreme act rooted in love and motivated by a desire to create a better world--whether it's the world of your company, team, neighborhood, or family.
STEVE FARBER & MATTHEW KELLY
Greater Than Yourself
Good leadership is largely invisible. When everything runs smoothly, no one notices.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
To be a leader of men one must turn one's back on men.
HAVELOCK ELLIS
introduction, Against the Grain
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.
ERIC HOFFER
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
To some extent, leaders are storytellers; really, though, they are characters in stories. They play leading roles, but in dramas they can't predict and don't always understand. Because the serialized drama of history is bigger than any one character's arc, leaders can't guarantee our ultimate narrative satisfaction. Because events, on the whole, are more protean than people, leaders grow less satisfying with time, as the stories they're ready to tell diverge from the stories we want to hear.
JOSHUA ROTHMAN
"Shut Up and Sit Down", The New Yorker, February 29, 2016
The best boss is the one who bosses the least.
RALPH MOODY
Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers